Foreigner

Chapter One Afsan couldn't see the sun, but he felt its noontime heat beating down. With his left hand he held the harness attached to Gork, his large monitor lizard. They were moving over paving stones, Afsan's toeclaws making heavy clicks against them, Gork's footfalls echoing that sound with a softer ticking. Afsan heard metal-rimmed wheels rolling over the roadway, approaching from the right. Afsan had been blind for twenty kilodays. Det-Yenalb, the Master of the Faith, had pierced Afsan's eyeballs with a ceremonial obsidian dagger. The priest had rotated the blade in each socket, gouging out the empty sacks. Afsan didn't like thinking about that long-ago day. He'd been convicted of heresy, and the blinding had been performed in Capital City's Central Square in front of over a hundred people, a mob packed with as little as three paces between each of its members. The city had changed since then. The landquake of kiloday 7110 had destroyed many roads and buildings, and the replacements were often different from the originals. The growth and redevelopment of the city had left their marks, too. Still, Afsan always knew where he was in relation to the Central Square. Even now, having to walk through it made him anxious. But today's journey would take him nowhere near--- Roots! Suddenly Afsan felt his middle toeclaw catch on something---a loose paving stone?---and he found himself pitching forward, his tail lifting off the ground. Gork let out a loud hiss as Afsan, desperately trying to right himself, yanked hard on the lizard's harness. From ahead, a shout: "Watch out!" Another voice, a different passerby: "He's going to be crushed!" A loud roar---a hornface?---dead ahead. Afsan's chest scraped across the pavement. The sound of cracking leather. The hornface again. A snap from his shoulder. A jab of pain. His muzzle smashing into the ground. Blood in his mouth. Two curving teeth knocked loose. And then, an explosion within his head as something heavy kicked into it. His head whipped sideways. His neck felt like it was going to snap. Crunching sounds. More pain. Indescribable pain. A scream from the roadside. More teeth knocked out. Afsan was unable to breathe through one nostril. He felt as if that whole side of his upper muzzle had been crushed. Running feet. Afsan let out a moan. A stranger's voice: "Are you all right?" Afsan tried to lift his head. Agony. His shoulder blade was a knife, slicing into his neck. His head was slick with blood. The high-pitched voice of a youngster: "It's Sal-Afsan!" Another voice. "By the Face of God, it is." And a third voice: "Oh, my God. His head---Sal-Afsan, are you all right?" More running sounds, toeclaws sparking against paving stones. Agony. "You ran right over him!" "He stumbled in front of my chariot. I tried to stop." Chariot. The wheels he'd heard. The hornface must have been drawing it. The kick to his head---a hornface's forefoot. Afsan tried to speak, but couldn't. He felt blood coursing out of him. "The left side of his face is smashed," said the youngster. "And look---there's something funny about his shoulder." Another voice. "Dislocated, I'm sure." "Is he dead?" called a new voice. "No. Not yet, anyway. Look at his skull!" Afsan tried to sSawyer, Robert J. is the author of 'Foreigner ', published 2005 under ISBN 9780765309723 and ISBN 0765309726.